Read the Web :: Carnegie Mellon University

NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning

Can computers learn to read? We think so. "Read the Web" is a research project that attempts to create a computer system that learns over time to read the web. Since January 2010, our computer system called NELL (Never-Ending Language Learner) has been running continuously, attempting to perform two tasks each day:

First, it attempts to "read," or extract facts from text found in hundreds of millions of web pages (e.g., playsInstrument(George_Harrison, guitar)).
Second, it attempts to improve its reading competence, so that tomorrow it can extract more facts from the web, more accurately.

So far, NELL has accumulated over 50 million candidate beliefs by reading the web, and it is considering these at different levels of confidence. NELL has high confidence in 2,810,379 of these beliefs — these are displayed on this website. It is not perfect, but NELL is learning. You can track NELL's progress below or @cmunell on Twitter, browse and download its knowledge base, read more about our technical approach, or join the discussion group.

instance	iteration	date learned	confidence
warner_range is a mountain range	1111	06-jul-2018	93.3
translucent_paper is an office supply	1111	06-jul-2018	93.4
robert_davison is a scientist	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8
steady_presence is a job position	1111	06-jul-2018	95.1
ash_breasted_sierra_finch is a bird	1112	24-jul-2018	100.0

blackhawks is headquartered in the state or province new_york	1116	12-sep-2018	99.6
coffee is an agricultural product produced in uk_	1116	12-sep-2018	99.2
clinton is a U.S. politician endorsed by the U.S. politician george_mitchell	1113	15-aug-2018	93.8
marta_vincenzi is the leader of the city genoa	1116	12-sep-2018	100.0
ben_roethlisberger is a person who belongs to the organization steelers	1111	06-jul-2018	99.8

Read the Web
Research Project at Carnegie Mellon University

NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning

Recently-Learned Facts